Thank you to each of you who have supported us in 2013. You have helped us so much with encouragement, ideas and advice, you've followed Riley's story, and celebrated all the little steps in his continued recovery with us. We wish you all a safe and happy 2014 and hope you have a comfortable bed with lots of love and treats.
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A Note From the Dog:
This is one of my favorite places in the kitchen. My mom is making food and sometimes things fall on the floor. I can't see it or hear it very well, so I wait close to the floor like this. If I'm patient sometimes I get lucky. As you can see, I have regained my trim waistline. I think that running around in the yard on my own has helped a lot. That's all for now, just thought you might want to see how fit I look. My reports will continue. Riley the Valiant and Courageous Sometimes Riley does something amazing and it's weeks before we see the same amazing thing a second time. He is a very smart dog, but I fear that we might expect too much from him. Learning to go out the back door required that he, 1) learn how to get to the back door, 2) be able to walk through a doorway, 3) be able to get down 6 steps, 4) be able to go through the dog door at the bottom of the steps, and, 5) be able to find the little dog door to get back inside and do it all in reverse.
But last week he put it all together, asked to go outside, and found his way back inside on his own. There was a strong possibility that this was a fluke, that all the pieces came together in the right order that one time and we might not see it again for awhile. I was so wrong. The next day Riley asked to go out a few times, the day after that he asked a few more times. Now we are his door servants, like we have been for many dogs before him, and we couldn't be happier. We watch him in the yard and it isn't like he needs to go out. He's going out just because he can, and that's the best reason of all! It has been very hard to teach Riley anything. He can’t hear us or see us, and until recently he couldn’t tolerate having us touch him. Add to that all his quirks about doors and his inability to walk in a straight line, or go up and down stairs, and he’s pretty helpless.
A few months ago I got it in my head that I was going to teach him to ask how to go outside, and to go outside on his own, without a leash and without an escort. I thought that if we took him out through the back door to the dog door every single time he went out that he would learn the way and might eventually be able to do it on his own. The first step was training my husband and son. It is so much easier to take Riley out the front door on the leash because there are no steps. It is fast and efficient. Taking him out the back door is slow and painful to watch as he struggles with the stairs. They both had their doubts, thinking Riley would never ‘get it’ about the back door. But they learned, and finally all three of us were on the same page. Back door only from now on. At first we had to take Riley out the back door on a leash, and there were more than a few times when we had to push him through the dog door. Progress has been slow, but we have stayed absolutely consistent believing that consistency would be the key to his learning. Yesterday I came home from work and Riley got out of bed and moved sort of near the back door. I optimistically said (shouted) “Outside?” He literally leapt into the air and dashed to the back door, spinning in excitement. I opened the back door and he went down those six steps and out the dog door like he had been doing it his whole life. He finally had his “Ah-ha!”moment. I watched him through the kitchen window. He was running back and forth in the snow, his head up, his ears all perky. He was just thrilled with himself. I’m pretty thrilled with him, too. It seemed like such a good idea to have Riley's picture taken with Santa for our Christmas cards this year. Even better, all costs for this were being donated to a local animal rescue organization. I hurried home from work, excited about the adventure. Riley happily trotted through all the snow and hopped into the car without much fuss. He is not like other dogs in public, he doesn't make eye contact or approach people, and when people walk up to him he freezes. The store had a young man, who was obviously an animal lover, dressed as Santa Claus. I introduced Riley and explained that he was shy and didn't hear or see well, so we would stand off to one side so he could watch a few other dogs get their pictures taken. Everyone was cool with that. When it was Riley's turn, Santa got down on the floor to be less threatening. Riley is totally suspicious of this bearded fat guy and wants nothing to do with this. Santa sat in the rocker for another try. By this time Riley had located me in the crowd of spectators and he's giving me the stinkiest of stink-eye looks I've ever seen. If he weren't so bothered, this might be funny. Eventually Riley decided he needed to take action and he walked away. No amount of treats or sweet talk from Santa could convince him to stay. While some people might consider this a failure, I'm very proud of him. It only took him a few minutes to determine that he could make the discomfort stop, and he took action. So while we have no pictures for our Christmas cards this year, what we do have is a dog who has learned that he doesn't have to tolerate crap from humans anymore. All we've wanted is for him to take some of his power back, and today he did. Riley showed us that he isn't helpless anymore.
Riley didn’t know what toys were when he moved in with us. The first time we saw him carrying one around in his mouth we were so happy that I think we cried. Now he knows that they are for him, and they make him happy. Sometimes when he is alone in the kitchen and I’m in the other room I can hear him talking to them with the warbly and social sounds that Dobermans make.
One of Riley’s new behaviors involves his toys. He’ll pick up a toy and circle the kitchen table with it a few times, then he'll place it in his bed. He’ll do this with the next toy and the next until he has surrounded his sleeping area with his things. If you look closely he has at least 5 toys positioned close by, and placement is not random. I look at him napping here, surrounded by his toys, and I get a little choked up. I see a dog that is not worrying about food or mice or bugs. I’m not exactly sure what is on his mind, or what the careful and specific positioning of all these toys might mean, but for now I don’t care. I mean, look at him! He’s a Doberman sleeping with a rainbow trout, how awesome is that? Riley’s swollen paw has responded to the antibiotics and daily soakings. This is good because it means there was nothing in there that was broken. It was just a bad infection. Phew! It also means that his body is still strong enough to bounce back from something like this.
Riley doesn’t communicate with us very well. We really have to pay attention most of the time. When I came home the other day to find him standing on all four feet I was thrilled. But when he touched his nose to his sore foot and looked up at me wagging his stub - then did it again - I nearly cried. He was talking to me, and he was fearless. It’s been a tough week for Riley, starting with the visit to the vet last Saturday. Riley and his sore foot that everyone wanted to touch and poke and squeeze. And the rectal thermometer and the scale, and the ear inspection and cleaning, and all the other indignities of a visit to the vet. And through it all he was calm and gentle. Until recently no one was ever gentle with him, so he has no reason to be gentle with us. But he is. The prescribed course for recovery involves antibiotics twice a day, (piece of cake, he’s a pill-taking champ), and soaking the infected foot in Epsom salts for 15 minutes twice a day. We quickly learned that foot soaking was no easy task. We ruled out the pail, and a few other containers in the first session. We felt successful that we at least got his foot wet. In a stroke of brilliance we decided to put the warm soaking solution into a large bag and slip it over his leg like a sleeve while he relaxed in bed. He wasn’t thrilled with it at first. He stayed still and refused to look at either of us. Check out this body language! But it must have felt pretty darn good because within 10 minutes he was relaxed and actually leaning on The Boy, almost like saying thank you. He doesn't have to be gentle with us, but he is, even when he's hurting. What a courageous dog he is.
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